This seems like a scheme James Bond would have a wet dream abut at night! The fact that the MPAA went through all this trouble to get these people seems a slight bit more than over zealous one would say. How is it that the MPAA can bring their own investigators and then invite the police along later after they made a complaint... and then to top it off when the authorities decide that their little investigation didnt pass the "sniff" test, they then convince the U.S. authorities to go after the guy who wrote some code for the site. Seems to me the MPAA is acting as their own department of justice and then just asking the goverment to go along and help when they cant get justice another way..shady as hell is an understatment

Tootech writes: The Electronic Frontier Foundation says in an amicus brief that Warner Bros. should be held responsible for its false copyright claims, which are at the center of a counterclaim that a file-sharing website filed against the Hollywood filmmaker. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which fights for civil liberties in the digital world, claims Warner is using an "automated dragnet technique" it knows is flawed to send out takedown notices to potential copyright infringers.

Warner Bros. Entertainment and others sued Hotfile in February 2011, claiming the Florida-based file-hosting website violated copyright and induced copyright violations by storing and letting users share pirated movies and TV shows. Joining Warners as plaintiffs were Disney, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., Universal City Studios, and Columbia Pictures.
Hotfile, which charges users a monthly fee, pays affiliates who upload content to the "cyberlockers," when users download the material.
The movie studios seek access to Hotfile's user and affiliate data to ascertain the severity of infringing activity.
Hotfile claimed that was a violation of privacy, but U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan disagreed.
Hotfile countersued in November 2011, claiming Warner filed bogus copyright infringement claims against it because Warner uses an inaccurate computer program to detect infringement and send out takedown notices.

wiredmikey writes: This month, Ford is borrowing something from the software industry: updates. With a fleet of new cars using the sophisticated infotainment system they developed with Microsoft called SYNC, Ford has the need to update those vehicles—for both features and security reasons. But how do you update the software in thousands of cars?

Tootech writes: A new service in the cyber underground aims to be the Google search of underground Web sites, connecting buyers to a vast sea of shops that offer an array of dodgy goods and services, from stolen credit card numbers to identity information and anonymity tools.

glut of data breaches and stolen card numbers has spawned dozens of stores that sell the information. The trouble is that each shop requires users to create accounts and sign in before they can search for cards.

Enter MegaSearch.cc, which lets potential buyers discover which fraud shops hold the cards they’re looking for without having to first create accounts at each store. This free search engine aggregates data about compromised payment cards, and points searchers to various fraud shops selling them.

According to its creator, the search engine does not store the compromised card numbers or any information about the card holders. Instead, it works with card shop owners to index the first six digits of all compromised account numbers that are for sale. These six digits, also known the “Bank Identification Number” — or BIN — identify which bank issued the cards. Searching by BIN, MegaSearch users are given links to different fraud shops that are currently selling cards issued by the corresponding bank.

Tootech writes: A new round of name-calling erupted Monday between copyright lawsuit filer Righthaven LLC of Las Vegas and one of its creditors.

Righthaven, the copyright enforcement partner of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and formerly of the Denver Post, has for months been in survival mode as it tries to block creditors from seizing its assets.

Creditors — including people sued by Righthaven for copyright infringement but who then defeated Righthaven in court — have won $216,335 in judgments against Righthaven. That’s money they spent on legal fees successfully fighting Righthaven.

In the latest round of legal wrangling, Righthaven filed motions in federal court in Las Vegas on Monday complaining about what it called the “scorched earth judgment enforcement efforts” of Righthaven defendant Wayne Hoehn and his attorneys.

After on June 20 winning dismissal of the Righthaven lawsuit against him — alleging infringement of a copyright for a Review-Journal column — Hoehn was awarded $34,045 in legal fees against Righthaven on Aug. 15.

Righthaven has asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to reverse both the dismissal of its suit against Hoehn and the award of his legal fees.

Righthaven, in the meantime, complained in Monday’s court filing that Hoehn’s attorneys at Randazza Legal Group in Las Vegas had inflated the $34,045 to $63,720 to cover Randazza’s judgment collection efforts through Nov. 1.

Tootech writes: A court-appointed receiver asked a federal judge for guidance Tuesday after Las Vegas copyright lawsuit filer Righthaven LLC balked at surrendering its copyrights to her for auction.

Lake Tahoe-area attorney Lara Pearson last month was named Righthaven’s receiver with orders to auction its copyrights, trademark, website domain name and physical assets to raise cash to cover at least part of a Righthaven defendant’s legal fees.

The defendant, Wayne Hoehn, defeated Righthaven in court after the company hit him with one of its 275 no-warning lawsuits alleging copyright infringement of material from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post.

Since Hoehn was found not to have infringed on a Righthaven copyright, Righthaven either can’t or won’t pay his $63,720 in legal fees.

Pearson managed to seize Righthaven’s website domain name and is selling it through an auction that ends Friday. The current high bid is $1,900, and higher bids must be made in increments of $100.

Pearson, in the meantime, reported Tuesday to U.S. District Judge Philip Pro in Las Vegas that her negotiations with Righthaven for the company to turn over its 278 federal copyright registrations, trademark and physical assets, including office equipment, had been unsuccessful.

"I have tried to work with Righthaven to ensure its compliance with the court's (receivership) order, but Righthaven has refused to execute the copyright assignments and has ignored repeated requests for a trademark assignment and an inventory of physical assets without explanation," Pearson wrote in a report to Pro.

Barence writes: "PC Pro has rounded up the stupidest IT security stories of 2011, including: a report that hackers could force HP printers to overheat and catch fire; the British Government code-cracking challenge that left the answer on a webpage visible to Google; Japanese scientists who claimed that you could identify users by the shape and weight of their bottom; and the DHL phishers who sent an attached form called "FedEx Document"."

An anonymous reader writes: Well, the time has come to say goodbye to low quality link building altogether. Google has made two major changes to its algorithm to target spammy/scraper sites first, and then followed by Panda update that targeted low quality sites. In addition Google penalized JCPenney, Forbes & Overstock.com for “shady” linking practices.Competitor’s ResearchThis situation could become tough for some link builders to digest, especially if you’re coming from research and if you see that “competitors for a particular keyword” are dominating because of their thousands & thousands of pure spam links.

Tootech writes: As 2011 concluded, problems with unpaid bills continued to pile up for copyright lawsuit filer Righthaven LLC of Las Vegas.

Records Saturday showed Righthaven has been sued by its own process server and also faces a request by defense attorneys that it be found in contempt of court.

Righthaven is the copyright enforcement partner of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and formerly of the Denver Post.

Righthaven is half owned by the family of billionaire Arkansas investment banker Warren Stephens, who owns the Las Vegas Review-Journal through his Stephens Media LLC company.

Stephens made headlines this week when his majority-owned Halifax Media Holdings LLC agreed to buy 16 newspapers around the country from the New York Times Co. for about $143 million.

While Stephens continues to invest in the newspaper industry, his family’s half-owned Righthaven copyright protection company has been floundering.

After filing 275 no-warning lawsuits since March 2010 alleging online copyright infringements of material from the Review-Journal and the Post, which provided copyrights to Righthaven for lawsuit purposes, Righthaven has suffered a series of defeats in court.

Judges found Righthaven lacked standing to sue as the newspapers maintained control of the material at issue, or the defendants were protected by fair use, or both.

These losses have prompted judges to order Righthaven to pay $216,355 in prevailing defendants’ legal fees.

Righthaven can’t – or won’t – pay the fees. It’s appealing the legal setbacks as well as the fee awards.

bs0d3 writes: Recently, google has been directing alot of people to thepiratebay.ee when people are searching for movies and music. This site mirrors thepiratebay.ORG exactly, except for the fact that it tries to charge people for downloads. The download button calls a script to run from freemoviedownloads300.com, which has no affiliation with the piratebay. When people click it, it calls them to pay for access of a.torrent file. Having been led to this site by google, many unsuspecting victims are not aware that the same.torrent file is hosted on the real piratebay for free. Ironically the message states, "Only registered users can use the tracker." The real piratebay is not a tracker, and no longer operates one.

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The TouchPad tablet from Hewlett-Packard turned out to be the year’s biggest flop but now the NY Times reports that some of the people involved in creating WebOS, the tablet’s core software, now say the product never had a fighting chance because it relied on WebKit, an open-source software engine used by browsers to display Web pages, that just didn't have the horsepower to run fast enough to be on par with the iPhone. “Palm was ahead of its time in trying to build a phone software platform using Web technology, and we just weren’t able to execute such an ambitious and breakthrough design,” says Paul Mercer, who oversaw the interface design of WebOS and recruited crucial members of the team. “Perhaps it never could have been executed because the technology wasn’t there yet.” Another problem was the difficulty in finding programmers who had a keen understanding of WebKit as Apple and Google snatched up most of the top talent including Matias Duarte, vice president of human interface and user experience for WebOS, who left for Google a month after HP's acquisition of Palm. “When he left, the vacuum was just palpable. What you’re seeing is frankly a bunch of fourth- and fifth-stringers jumping onto WebOS in the wake of Duarte’s leaving.” CEO Meg Whitman has announced that HP will release the WebOS code for anyone to use, similar to Google’s open-source strategy with Android but some say WebKit will still leave WebOS underpowered relative to Apple’s software. “If the bar is to build Cupertino-class software in terms of responsiveness and beauty,” says Mercer, “WebKit remains not ready for prime time, because the Web cannot deliver yet.”"

MojoKid writes: "Renowned overclocker "Hicoookie" achieved a new high clock speed on the Intel Core i7 3930K processor by cranking the chip past 5.6GHz using a Gigabyte GA-X79-UD3 motherboard, the first mobo in the world to achieve a mulitplier of 57x. There was a bit of a scandal with Gigabyte recently when a YouTube video showed one of its X79 boards going up in smoke. Gigabyte released a BIOS update for several of its X79 boards to prevent such incidents from happening, and there were outcries that the new F7 BIOS would essentially gimp overclocking performance Hicookie's achievement should erase those concerns."

Tootech writes: As 2011 concluded, problems with unpaid bills continued to pile up for copyright lawsuit filer Righthaven LLC of Las Vegas.

Records Saturday showed Righthaven has been sued by its own process server and also faces a request by defense attorneys that it be found in contempt of court.

Righthaven is the copyright enforcement partner of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and formerly of the Denver Post.

Righthaven is half owned by the family of billionaire Arkansas investment banker Warren Stephens, who owns the Las Vegas Review-Journal through his Stephens Media LLC company.

Stephens made headlines this week when his majority-owned Halifax Media Holdings LLC agreed to buy 16 newspapers around the country from the New York Times Co. for about $143 million.

While Stephens continues to invest in the newspaper industry, his family’s half-owned Righthaven copyright protection company has been floundering.

After filing 275 no-warning lawsuits since March 2010 alleging online copyright infringements of material from the Review-Journal and the Post, which provided copyrights to Righthaven for lawsuit purposes, Righthaven has suffered a series of defeats in court.

Judges found Righthaven lacked standing to sue as the newspapers maintained control of the material at issue, or the defendants were protected by fair use, or both.

These losses have prompted judges to order Righthaven to pay $216,355 in prevailing defendants’ legal fees.

Righthaven can’t – or won’t – pay the fees. It’s appealing the legal setbacks as well as the fee awards.

Tootech writes: The online auction of the righthaven.com website domain name got under way Monday, with bidders having until Jan. 6 to submit offers.

A judge has authorized a receiver to auction the intellectual property of Las Vegas-based Righthaven LLC, the newspaper copyright infringement lawsuit filer.

The auction is aimed at raising money to cover part of Righthaven’s $63,720 debt to a man who defeated Righthaven in court.

The man, Wayne Hoehn, and his attorneys defeated Righthaven when a judge threw out Righthaven’s lawsuit against him over Hoehn’s unauthorized post on a sports betting website message board of a Las Vegas Review-Journal column by columnist and former Publisher Sherman Frederick.

Hoehn was a defendant in one of Righthaven’s 275 lawsuits filed since March 2010.